My Weekend With Inbox: How Google's New App Got Me Organized

Last week Google introduced a radical new mail app, built on top of Gmail, that promises to cut through the pain of managing your inbox. Countless apps and extensions have promised to relieve the suffering of email, and I'm always open to trying another one. I spent the past few days using Inbox as my primary email app, and here's how it works.

Inbox's approach is focused on giving you access to the most important information first, eliminating the need to dig through emails for essentials such as attachments, photos, and travel details. Its smart reading function abandons the classic chronological presentation of email in favor of grouping similar messages together and prioritizing them by importance.

The main dashboard, titled simply, "Inbox," acts as a feed of all your incoming mail, which is placed into smart categories Inbox calls "bundles." Your Inbox comes with a set of pre-categorized bundles such as travel, purchases, updates, and social media, but you can also create your own bundles and tell Inbox what kind of messages to automatically throw in there.

Bundles are similar to the "Labels" and "Categories" you're already using on Gmail. The difference here is that Inbox presents your emails in the bundles themselves, and the bundles move up and down your timeline as new emails arrive. For example, I took a label I already had in Gmail titled "Pop Mech," and enabled bundling in its settings. Now, anytime an email arrives that fits into the parameters I've set for that bundle, such as all emails from certain people, with certain email domains, or containing certain keywords, it will automatically be placed in the "Pop Mech" bundle, and the entire bundle will appear at the top of my inbox with the most recent email in bold.

Located in the bottom right corner of the dashboard is a red circle with a plus in the center you'll recognize from some of Google's other mobile apps. You can hover over it on the web app or simply press it on the mobile app to compose an email to any of your most recent contacts, or to compose a reminder that will be pinned to the top of your Inbox.

Like Gmail, Inbox scans all of your emails, but here the most important content in each message is highlighted and previewed so you don't have to open each email. For example, PDF and photo attachments will appear below the subject, as will recent purchases, flight information, and other reservations, making it easy for the user to preview that content straight from the Inbox. This is by far my favorite feature of the app. With just a glance, I can navigate the essentials all in one view.

Inbox also gives you multiple options for individual or bulk actions on your email, such as "Pin," which saves that message to the top of your Inbox, effectively acting as a "to-do" reminder (implying that people don't only use email for messaging, but also to organize their day-to-day priorities). There's also "Snooze," which allows you to defer that message to a later time, at which point that email will pop back up at the top of your Inbox, and "Done" which doesn't delete the email but places it in a separate category to signify that you've already taken care of it. Inbox includes helpful shortcuts, too. Swiping an email left will snooze it, while swiping right will mark it as done.

The "Snooze" and "Done" folders are easily accessible from the top of the sidebar, and you can access all pinned items from the thumbtack toggle in the top right corner of the inbox. To activate a bulk action in the mobile app, press and hold any email in that folder for approximately 3 seconds to check or uncheck multiple messages. My only quarrel with this is that there's no similar one-step action for sending emails to the trash folder. Instead, you have to push the "options" button, then hit "Trash." While the web app doesn't allow you to select multiple emails for bulk actions, you can still "sweep" all items in that bundle as "done."

The mobile app and web app are almost identical, with the web app also giving you quick access to Google Hangouts, Google Drive, and your other Google notifications. One final (and major) setback is that unlike popular email management apps like Outlook or Mailbox, Inbox only works with Gmail accounts.

Although my first reaction to Inbox was an overwhelming anxiety over its unfamiliar presentation and initially unclear functionality, its features have proven quite useful over the few days I've been using the app, especially the preview function for important content. Being able to see what I need without opening each email saves time and, along with Inbox's bundle feature, adds to the organizational appeal Google is clearly striving for.

This is a smart mailbox for the busy user who simply has too many emails to manage with a basic mail app. Despite a few minor complaints, the app offers a definite upgrade from the classic Gmail app. Inbox does more than just organize your email; it streamlines the process of checking and composing them, too. Now go bug your friends for invites, or request one from Google.

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